5/9-11/03
Searching
for ancient Talmud, soldiers find Iraqi intelligence info on Israel/
Israel Insider. While searching for a 7th century copy of
the Babylonian Talmud at an Iraqi secret police headquarters, American
soldiers in Baghdad discovered a trove of Iraqi intelligence documents
on Israel, including maps of Scud strikes, models of the Knesset and
other Israeli sites, and a satellite picture of the Dimona nuclear
reactor. American military officials called the discovery
"significant." The Talmud has not been found.

5/7/03
Partially
open window, By Martin Indyk/ jerusalem Post. I think the
new Palestinian cabinet is a window of opportunity but it's only
partially opened and Israel, the United States and Abu Mazen are going
to have to work together to really turn it into a genuine window of
opportunity.

5/7/03
Editorial:
End 'plausible deniability'/ Jerusalem Post. In a classic
Yiddish folktale, a rabbi advises a poor man who complains of
overcrowding to bring his goat inside the house. Though puzzled, he goes
along with bringing animal after animal inside. The rabbi's logic is
finally revealed when he tells the man to remove all the animals,
leaving a seemingly spacious house behind.

5/5/03
The U.S.
and Israel: The Road Ahead by Abraham D. Sofaer/ Commentary.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER the 1991 Gulf war, the first Bush administration
convened in Madrid an international conference on the Israel-Palestinian
conflict. This was an event that political leaders all over the world
had been pursuing as if it were the holy grail of international
diplomacy.

4/28/03 Explanations
for the cleaning woman. By Zvi Bar'el/ Haaretz.
"I am not prepared to cooperate with any Kuwaiti government
organization," wrote former Egyptian judge Tarik al-Masri in reply
to an invitation he received from the Kuwaiti Religious Trusts Ministry
to speak at the annual conference on innovations in Islamic thought.

4/27/03 France
briefed Iraq on war: FRANCE gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular
reports on its dealings with US officials, The Sunday Times reported,
quoting files it had found in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign
ministry.

4/27/03
Poll:
Palestinians support suicide bombings, don't trust Abu Mazen By
israelinsider staff. The most recent poll by the Palestinian-run
Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre indicates that only a small
minority of Palestinians (15.2%) believe that a violence-free approach
best serves the Palestinian interest. The overwhelming majority (65.3%)
support continuing the violence against Israel, 60.5% support
"military operations" inside Israel and 59.9% support suicide
bombings against Israeli civilians.

4/23/03 The
Road Map is Not the Main Issue By: Ben Caspit/ Maariv. The “road
map’s” sole purpose is to get the peace process moving again. This
is the message that was relayed by American ambassador to Israel, Dan
Kurtzer, when he met with several senior Israeli politicians over the
past several days.

4/13/03 Back
to the Bazaar By Martin Indyk From Foreign Affairs, January/February
2002. A decade ago, the United States faced a
defining moment in the Middle East. It had just deployed overwhelming
force to liberate Kuwait and destroy Iraq's offensive capabilities. The
outcome of the Gulf War, combined with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
had left the United States in an unprecedented position of dominance in
the region. Washington was debating what to do with this newfound and
unchallenged influence.

4/11-13/03
The
News We Kept to Ourselves By EASON JORDAN (Chief news executive at CNN)/
NY Times. Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to
Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to
arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. Each time I visited, I became
more distressed by what I saw and heard — awful things that could not
be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis,
particularly those on our Baghdad staff. [How could he remain silent in
the face of such evil? Ed.]

4/11-13/03
Is
Abu Mazen dangerous?. By Ze'ev Schiff/ Haaretz. The debate
going on behind the scenes in Israel is not necessarily connected to
President Bush's "road map." What has suddenly risen to the
top of the agenda is the question of whether Abu Mazen's appointment as
the first Palestinian prime minister represents an opportunity to stop
the terror and put an end to the conflict, or whether it poses a serious
danger and the possibility of sliding further down the slippery slope.

4/11-13/03 A
NEW AGE OF WARFARE. By RALPH PETERS/ NY Post. WITH the
Iraqi people dancing atop a dictator's fallen statue, the pundits who
forecast an American bloodbath have begun to change their story.
Implying that our military achievement wasn't all that grand, they tell
us Saddam didn't even have much of a plan to defend his country.

4/4/03 From
Beirut to Baghdad, By Arieh O'Sullivan/ Jerusalem Post. It
was a muggy August day on the outskirts of Beirut in 1982. My unit had
been yanked out of NCO course and shipped to Lebanon to fight mop-up
battles in the Palestinian neighborhood / refugee camp of Hai el-Salum
as negotiations were underway for the PLO to quit the city. Downtown
Beirut was spread out before us with its scores of multi-storied
buildings and canyon-like streets.

The Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, just
appeared on television. He said that the coalition forces have
been crushed by the Republican Guard, that there are no Americans
at the Baghdad airport, none have entered Baghdad, and on and on.

The next scene on television is an embedded reporter at the
airport and video of the US Army drive through South West Baghdad.
(Perhaps these videos were made by the same production team that
"faked" the walk on the moon.)

The meaningless words of the information minister portend
poorly for peace between the Palestinians and Israel. They do so
because for the past 55 years the much of the leadership of the
Arab world has lied to their citizens. They have preached false
victories over the Jews and rejected compromise. These words have
reaped despair and defeat.

Remember 1948 when the Jews were "driven into the
sea." Remember 1967 when Egypt, Syria and Jordan spoke of
"great victories." Remember, Arafat speaking of peace in
English and jihad in Arabic. Remember Arafat lying to the
President of United States when he denied having any knowledge of
the Karine-A arms shipment from Iran. Now the same false rhetoric
comes from Iraq.

After the failure of Camp David, Arafat went on multi country
tour, inflaming the Arabs, and preaching no compromise. He denied
an offer of Arab control of Al Aksa was made at Camp David. He
denied the historical existence of a Jewish Temple.

Why wouldn't he when the Arab schoolbooks in Ramallah and New
York City won't show Israel on a map and teach that Christians and
Jews are cursed?

I, who once was a strong supporter of Oslo, now realize that
words are not enough. The words of the Iraqi information minister
and Yasser Arafat have no meaning.

We know that. The British, French, Germans and Russians know
that. The Arabs public knows that. The sooner all accept that, the
sooner we can chart a new path toward peace.

Words will not bring peace. Words are not enough. Actions must
take their place. [Michael Fried]

4/3/03
Come
the Revolution By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN/ NY Times. To read
the Arab press is to think that the entire Arab world is enraged with
the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and to some extent that's true. But here's
what you don't read: underneath the rage, there is also a grudging,
skeptical curiosity — a curiosity about whether the Americans will
actually do what they claim and build a new, more liberal Iraq.

3/25/03 Analysis
/ What happened to the civil uprising against Saddam? By Zvi Bar'el/
Haaretz. The port of Umm-Qasr, the main Iraqi exit to the
sea, has begun to evolve into a kind of symbol of resistance. For the
past four days, continuous fighting has taken place in the city. Every
day has ended with an optimistic report that the city is in U.S. hands,
only for it to emerge the following day that the battles there are still
ongoing.

3/25/03 Europe's
war of independence. By Adar Primor/ Haaretz. The Bush
administration hawks want to believe that Saddam's defeat will frustrate
efforts by France and Germany to sever the umbilical cord that binds
them to the U.S. Only rarely can one use the cliche "the
world gone mad" without eliciting derision.

3/23/03 Road
map put off until after Iraq war. By Aluf Benn/ Haaretz.
The United States has reached a secret understanding with Palestinian
prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, to
put off the formal presentation of the "road map" until the
new Palestinian cabinet is sworn in and possibly until after the war in
Iraq.

3/21-22/03 Inside
Track / Sand and deliver. By Amir Oren. Haaretz. As
he looked at the images of the dust storm yesterday in the predawn hours
(Baghdad time) that threatened to disrupt his war plan, General Richard
Myers pictured in his mind's eye an individual with a mustache.

3/21/03 Odyssey
of an Israeli journalist. Caroline Glick/ Jerusalem Post.
I do not recall ever considering the country of Kuwait or the Kuwaiti
people for that matter with any particular emotion. To the best of my
knowledge, Kuwaiti forces never participated in the Arab world's wars
against Israel, nor have the Kuwaitis overtly funded terrorism against
us like the Saudis and the Iraqis.

3/19/03 Colin
Powell's mistake. By Ze'ev Schiff/ Haaretz. A second war
in 12 years against the same country is an unusual event in American
history. Despite the resounding defeat Saddam Hussein suffered in 1991,
the United States felt the need to go back and use its power against
Iraq - this time under terrible political and international
circumstances.

3/18/03 Analysis:
Baghdad's 'hang-on' strategy. By Amir Taheri? Jerusalem Post.
Sometime last Saturday, Saddam Hussein was finally convinced that his
French friends could not buy him some extra time and that war was
coming. And he acted the way he always has, by unveiling a war plan
based on his favorite tactic of "cheat and retreat."
Saddam's war plan has three aims.

3/17/03 France
Against the USA./ Jane's. France has transformed
international relations. Its emergence as the USA's chief international
opponent has surprised everyone. Its position is hard to understand.
Yet, as seen from Paris, France finds itself in a unique set of
circumstances, which President Jacques Chirac remains determined to
exploit. Here are the real calculations of the French leader.

3/16/03 Who,
or what, is driving America to war? By Reuven Koret/ Israel Insider.
The Jewish lobby doesn't need to control American policies. Because this
Administration is guided by principles which are essentially Jewish. And
lest my meaning be misconstrued on the eve of our solemn Purim holiday,
let me clarify that I mean: rooted in the moral vision of the Bible.

3/14-16/03 Inside
Track / So long, this day before. By Amir Oren/ Haaretz.
Two years ago, the Institute for Defense Analyses, which is affiliated
with the Pentagon, tried to come up with a table of human personality
traits that could be applied to nations. In the family of nations, as in
human society, there are introverted and extroverted types, those who
think and those who sense, those that are intuitive and those that feel.
[Read the following article also.]

3/14-16/03 Force
and Strategy Assessments - National Security Strategy Issues.
Given rising concerns about the potentially expanding spectrum of
nuclear challengers to the United States, IDA explored how Iraq and Iran
might exploit nuclear threats to affect the actions of each other and
the United States. We recommended steps to increase the credibility and
efficacy of U.S. actions aimed at shaping the behaviors of Iraq and Iran
in a nuclear crisis. [Myers-Briggs of Countries!?!]

3/14-16/03 Sizing
up Abu Mazen. By Ze'ev Schiff/ Haaretz. Abu Mazen
will confront two dangers when he assumes his duties as prime minister
of the Palestinian Authority. Both could ruin his chances of being a
leader who can steer his people back to the negotiating table. One
danger is Yasser Arafat; the other is Ariel Sharon - as long as Arafat
remains in command.

3/13/03 Its
finest hour: By Israel Harel/ Haaretz. Far beyond
the numerous and complex interests, the United States is going to war
against Iraq for idealistic reasons. Along with being the only
superpower, America is also the last idealist country. In fact, were it
not for this idealism, it is unlikely it would have reached its position
as the only superpower.

3/11/03 Whose
War? By Patrick J. Buchanan/ The American Conservative. A
neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars
that are not in America’s interest...Tim Russert put this question
directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers ... that
we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for
American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of
Israel?” [Pat Buchanan at it again.]

3/10/03 Enemies,
a post-national story. By Yair Sheleg/ Haaretz. "Images that
were in the past directed against the Jews are now aimed at the
Americans: the desire to rule the world; the allegation that the
Americans, like the Jews in the past, are interested only in money and
have no real feeling for culture or social distress.

3/7-9/03 If
America backs down on Iraq. By Ze'ev Schiff/ Haaretz. Is
there any logical reason that will induce U.S. President George W. Bush
to stop the war machine against Iraq, recall the 300,000 or so American
troops, and order the vast armada of ships and planes to turn around,
without being considered bankrupt as a president and a leader?

3/3/03 The
Long Bomb By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN/NY Times. Watching this
Iraq story unfold, all I can say is this: If this were not about my own
country, my own kids and my own planet, I'd pop some popcorn, pull up a
chair and pay good money just to see how this drama unfolds.

3/2/03 Bush
May Signal Shift on Israeli Settlements. By Glenn Kessler/Washington
Post. In his speech Wednesday evening on postwar Iraq,
President Bush signaled a shift in the administration's policy on the
controversial issue of Israeli settlements, apparently embracing the
Israeli government's view that substantial concessions by the
Palestinians are necessary before Israel must begin to rein in the
expansion of settlements in the occupied territories.

3/2/03 Three
reasons for the offensive against Hamas. By Ze'ev Schiff/Haaretz.
There are three major reasons behind the decision to launch an offensive
against Hamas, which is based mainly in the Gaza Strip. The first has to
do with the cease-fire talks in Cairo. The second is related to the
firing of Qassam rockets at the southern town of Sderot. The third
reason is indirectly related to the looming war in Iraq and the period
that will follow it.

3/2/03 Assad
accuses US of plotting to redraw Mideast map. Jerusalem Post.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a speech during the opening session of
the summit, said it was a mistake to identify the Iraqi leadership as
the source of the crisis. Assad accused the United States of being
interested not in toppling a dictatorial regime, but in securing Iraq's
"oil and redrawing the region's map and destroying Iraq's
infrastructure."

3/2/03 Nightmare
scenarios for all. By Zvi Bar'el/Haaretz. The Kurds in
northern Iraq are worried about further betrayals, while the Turks fear
the return of masses of Kurdish refugees to the oil cities. Could the
U.S. be caught in a conflict between them?

2/28/03 Laughing
all the way to the government. By Yoel Marcus/Haaretz. Even if
Fuad Ben-Eliezer tore out his hair and extinguished burning cigarettes
on his body every morning, it still wouldn't atone for the mistake he
made in quitting the government at the wrong time, over the wrong issue,
setting off a chain of aftershocks in the political system.

2/27/03 The
Gridlock Gang By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN. William Rees-Mogg,
the former editor of The Times of London, raised a very important
question in an essay he wrote after watching the recent, massive antiwar
demonstrations in Europe. Referring to the various banners carried by
protesters, he noted: "There was, I thought, one slogan which was
missing. There were quite a number which called for `Freedom for
Palestine' [but] I looked in vain for one which called for `Freedom for
Iraq.' . . . None of the speakers expressed any wish to free Iraq. . .
."

2/25/03 Sharon's
Letter to Lapid regarding the "Road Map".
"...the government of Israel is conducting a broad range of talks
with President Bush's administration on detailing the precise stages of
implementing the road map of June 24, 2002 for achieving progress in the
peace process with the Palestinians that would lead to a peace
accord..."

2/23/03 The
Al-Arian Defense/ Washington Post. WHEN THE UNIVERSITY of
South Florida declared late in 2001 that it meant to fire tenured
computer engineering professor Sami Al-Arian, he became a cause celebre
of academic freedom.

2/19/03 The
arrogance of Aziz. By Ze'ev Schiff/Ha'aretz. Butler
describes the conversations in his book, "The Greatest
Threat," which was published in 2000. Aziz told Butler that
chemical weapons saved Iraq from the Iranians, but that the real threat
to Iraq comes from the illegitimate Zionist state. Because of that
danger, Iraq had to develop biological weaponry, which it is ready to
use to defend itself against Israel.

2/18/03 Germany
accused of hiding evidence of smallpox virus arsenals in Iraq.
Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim/Jerusalem Post. The German government
suppressed evidence of small pox virus arsenals in Iraq for months,
fearing such news could undermine Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder's
re-election campaign, according to a report in the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung.

2/17/03 Did
Saddam Gas the Kurds? By Juan Cole/History News Network. In a recent New York
Times op-ed, Stephen Pelletiere argued that the March, 1988, gassing of
Kurds during the waning months of the Iran-Iraq war may have been
perpetrated by Iran, not Iraq... My own knowledge of the horrors Saddam
has perpetrated makes it impossible for me to stand against the coming
war, however worried I am about its aftermath. World order is not served
by unilateral military action, to which I do object. But world order,
human rights and international law are likewise not served by allowing a
genocidal monster to remain in power.

2/16/03 Inspections
Are A Total Waste of Time. By KHIDHIR HAMZA/Wall Street Journal.
My 20 years of work in Iraq's nuclear-weapons program and military
industry were partly a training course in methods of deception and
camouflage to keep the program secret... the U.N. weapons inspectors
will not find anything Saddam does not want them to find...France,
Germany, and to a degree, Russia, are opposed to U.S. military action in
Iraq mainly because they maintain lucrative trade deals with Baghdad,
many of which are arms-related.

2/16/03 Focus
/ Bush must think again. By Ze'ev Schiff. In his
interim report to the Security Council on Friday, the head of United
Nations weapons inspectors, Hans Blix, questioned U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell's arguments against the Iraqis, which was a slap in
the face to Washington and strengthened those opposing the war.

2/16/03 If
things go badly wrong. By Ze'ev Schiff/Ha'aretz. What is
disturbing in the American approach to a war in Iraq is the unequivocal
win-win scenarios they generate. In these, only one outcome is possible
- total victory. It is doubtful that a proper examination of the
alternatives has been made, just in case something does go wrong.

2/14-16/03 In
search of smiling Islam. By David Landau. ALMATY,
Kazakhstan - From the moment the planes crashed into the Twin Towers,
the United States has been trying with all its might to refute the
widespread claim that this attack marked the onset of a "culture
war." On the other hand, Osama bin Laden continues to insist - and
did so on a new tape broadcast this week - that he has indeed triggered
the fearful clash of civilizations that Samuel Huntington cautioned
against in his celebrated book.

2/14-16/03 Palestinian
Leaders: Our Strategy Brought Sharon Victory/MEMRI. In
assessing the Likud's victory and the Labor-left camp's defeat in the
recent Israeli election, some Palestinian Authority figures concluded
that it was the PA's strategy that led to the election's outcome. 'We
Should Persuade the Israelis that We are Not Threatening Their Security.'

2/14-16/03 Report:
Iraq wanted to reach peace agreement with Israel. By Ellis Shuman/IsraelInsider.
Contacts between the two countries broke off due to Israeli
skepticism of Iraq's sincerity to reach a peace agreement and American
objections. Representatives of the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein
sent messages to Israeli officials on their willingness to establish
diplomatic relations between Iraq and Israel, Maariv reported today.
Contacts between the two countries broke off due to Israeli skepticism
of Iraq's sincerity to reach a peace agreement and emphatic objections
of the U.S. government, the paper said.

2/13/03 The
Antiwar Anti-Semites. By MICHAEL LERNER/Wall Street Journal. Imagine
my surprise when I found out that I am banned from speaking at a peace
rally here this Sunday...My sin was publicly criticizing the way that
A.N.S.W.E.R., one of the four groups sponsoring the San Francisco
demonstration, has used the anti-war demonstrations to put forward
anti-Israel propaganda.

2/13/03 U.S.-EU
crisis is death blow to 'road map'. By Ze'ev Schiff/Ha'aretz.
The crisis between the U.S. and Europe will have profound implications
for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, undermining the Quartet's effort
to impose a solution to the conflict on Israel, and strengthening the
Sharon government's opposition to the Quartet "road map" and
the prime minister's view that the "Bush framework" is the
only relevant diplomatic arena for a political peace process.

2/12/03 AFTER
SADDAM? By DANIEL PIPES/NY Post. OUTSIDERS wonder if the U.N.
Security Council will endorse Washington's goal of toppling Saddam
Hussein. But policy insiders assume an American war and an American
victory, followed by Iraq's rehabilitation. [Also see Fouad Ajami
article below.]

2/7-10/03 The
Iraqis' Use of Poison Gas. NYTimes. To the Editor: Re "A
War Crime or an Act of War?," by Stephen C. Pelletiere (Op-Ed, Jan.
31): In 1988, as a staff member working for the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, I documented Iraqi chemical weapons attacks on 49 Kurdish
villages in Dihok Province along Iraq's border with Turkey. These
attacks began on Aug. 25, 1988, five days after the Iran-Iraq war ended,
and were specifically targeted on civilians.

2/7-10/03 What
Sharon will say to Mubarak. By Ze'ev Schiff. For more than
two years, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak took an unbending, offensive
attitude toward Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Referring to his
expectations of Sharon, Mubarak stated in July 2001, "As long as
Sharon is prime minister of Israel, there will be no peace between
Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2/5/03 Will
the Neighbors Approve? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN. n talking
with Bush administration officials of late I am struck by an incredible
contrast. It is the contrast between the breathtaking audacity of what
they intend to do in Iraq — an audacity that, I must say, has an
appeal for me — and the incredibly narrow base of support that exists
in America today for this audacious project.

2/3/03 Does
Israel Need a Plan? by Daniel Pipes/Commentary. The year
also witnessed a host of new plans, initiatives, and schemes for fixing
the situation...they issued from various parties in Israel and the
United States, with an echo or two from Europe and the Arab states.

1/30/03 An
EU turn. By Aluf Benn. An important goal of the new
government to be formed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon must be the
rehabilitation of relations with Europe, which have deteriorated greatly
over the past two years.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will do everything in his power and
use everything at his disposal to establish a national unity
government in the image of the previous one - including the Labor
Party. If he fails, he will approach Shinui, which won 15 seats in
Tuesday's election, and offer the anti-religious party a place in
a narrow, right-wing government, with or without Shas.

1/30/03 Necessary
steps. By Ze'ev Schiff/Ha'aretz. It makes no difference
whether the next government is a narrow government of the right or a
coalition of parties from the right and from the left - any government
that is formed will have to take the following diplomatic-security steps
if it wants to prevent a grave deterioration in Israel's situation:

1/27/03 JERUSALEM
POST: Vote Sharansky. The choice Israelis face Tuesday is
not simply between Sharon and Mitzna. There are other parties, some of
them farcical, others dangerous, still others parochial. But one man
stands out above the rest. He is Natan Sharansky and his party, Yisrael
B'Aliya.

1/27/03 Refugees
Forever? Issues in the Palestinian Israel Conflict/Jerusalem Post.
For the past half-century, there has been a deliberate refusal to
resettle Palestinian refugees within the Arab world. Instead, the
Palestinian and Arab leadership have condemned these people and their
descendants to poverty and misery in the UNRWA-run camps that offer
little hope of a better life.

1/24/03 Egypt
Rethinks its Nuclear Program - Part II: The Egyptian Nuclear Lobby By:
Yotam Feldner. Although official Egyptian policy opposes
the development of nuclear weapons, Egypt does have a nuclear arms
lobby. In addition to many of the Egyptian nuclear scientists who
support the development of a nuclear program that can be diverted for
military purposes in the future, the nuclear lobby includes politicians,
former senior military commanders, and clerics.

1/22/03 Palestinian
debate provokes heated discussion. By Rahwa Ghebre-Ab, Michigan Daily.
Chants, jeers and cheers filled the Michigan Union Ballroom during an
Arab-Israeli public forum and debate featuring speakers Ali Abunimah,
vice president of the Arab-American Action Network, and Morton Klein,
national president of the Zionist Organization of America. [To me the
most significant part of the evening occurred during the question period
when one member of the audience started chanting "Divest from
Israel now." Not a single person in the largely pro-Palestinian
audience took up his chant. Rather he was told to stop and just
ask his question. Perhaps civility is returning to the campus. It
may also be a small sign that the intifada has failed and a new way
needs to be found to resolve this conflict. (Editor)]

1/21/03 Iraq
and the Arabs' Future by Fouad Ajami/Foreign Affairs. The
driving motivation behind a new U.S. endeavor in Iraq should be
modernizing the Arab world. Most Arabs will see such an expedition as an
imperial reach into their world. But in this case a reforming foreign
power's guidelines offer a better way than the region's age-old
prohibitions, defects, and phobias. No apologies ought to be made for
America's "unilateralism."

1/21/03 Sharon's
coalition scenarios, By YOSEF GOELL/Jerusalem Post. With just
about a week left to election day the mists seem to be lifting from the
witches' cauldron of the final polling results, but not necessarily from
the even more important coalition scenarios which will follow on the day
after

1/21/03 Rein
in the extremists. Jerusalem Post.On Friday night, Netanel
Ozeri was shot dead by Palestinian terrorists at the front door of his
home, in front of his wife and children. His death should be
mourned and his killers condemned, but it is precisely for this reason
that the spectacle surrounding his funeral is, as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi
Yisrael Meir Lau put it, a "disgrace."

1/9/03
Exploiting
the Palestinians Everyone's doing it. by Max Boot/Weekly Standatd.
IN AN INTERVIEW LAST MONTH with Britain's Sunday Times, Yasser
Arafat rebuked Osama bin Laden for seeking to exploit the
Palestinians' cause for his own ends. "Why is bin Laden
talking about Palestine now? . . . He never helped us. He was
working in another, completely different area and against our
interests," Arafat was quoted as saying. "I'm telling
him directly not to hide behind the Palestinian cause."

1/9/03 Exploiting
the Palestinians Everyone's doing it. by Max Boot/Weekly Standatd.
IN AN INTERVIEW LAST MONTH with Britain's Sunday Times, Yasser Arafat
rebuked Osama bin Laden for seeking to exploit the Palestinians' cause
for his own ends. "Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now? .
. . He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different
area and against our interests," Arafat was quoted as saying.
"I'm telling him directly not to hide behind the Palestinian
cause."

1/7/03 PA
arrests reporter. By Khaled Abu Toameh/Jerusalem Post. The
Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence Service arrested a
correspondent for al-Jazeera television on Monday, accusing him of
harming the national interests of the Palestinian people by reporting
that Fatah had claimed responsibility for that day's double
suicide-bombing in Tel Aviv.

1/7/03Savoring
a Private Zion By Debra B. Darvick/Hadassah Magazine.
Normally the dog tags of Jewish servicemen are imprinted with the word
"Jewish." But Defense, fearing that this would put Jewish
soldiers at further risk should they be captured on Iraqi soil,
substituted the classification "Protestant B" on the tags.

1/5/03Al Qaeda
prepares bio-terror for US and Israel. EBKA-Net-Weekly’s
intelligence sources report mounting fears within US and Israeli
counter-terrorism agencies that al Qaeda’s three command centers are
preparing mega-terror attacks for US and Israeli targets.

12/26-31/02Hezbollah
Becomes Potent Anti-U.S. Force By NEIL MacFARQUHAR/NYTimes. The
Hezbollah band marched through first, its thumping tune accompanied
incongruously by seven bagpipers, drawing the first cheers from
thousands of drenched spectators who arrived hours early for the
Jerusalem Day parade, an annual military spectacle with a virulent
"I hate Israel" theme.

12/20/02Anti-Israel
Tide on Campus Is Waning, Activists Report. By DANIEL TREIMAN FORWARD
STAFF Pro-Israel students on many American campuses spent much
of the last academic year on the defensive, confronted by an aggressive
pro-Palestinian movement. Observers of Jewish campus affairs say,
however, that the tide appears to have turned this semester, with the
campus divestment campaign against Israel failing to make much headway
and pro-Israel students growing increasingly confident.

12/13-18/02AN ISRAELI
VIEW No common vocabulary by Yossi Alpher. One of the
distinguishing characteristics of the current crisis in
Israeli-Palestinian relations is the virtual collapse, with a few
prominent exceptions, of the capacity of the two sides to communicate
productively with one another. Israelis and Palestinians who dialogued
successfully prior to October 2000 now appear to have lost their common
vocabulary, their shared lexicon of agreed terms.

12/13-18/02A
PALESTINIAN VIEW Where peace is possible by Ghassan Khatib.
In such a deep and complicated conflict, misunderstandings about the
other side are to be expected. These misunderstandings result partially
from the increasing distance and lack of interaction between the two
sides, but are also caused by attempts to distort each other’s
positions and ensure the incitement necessary to maintain public clamor
for ongoing hostilities or support for this leader or that. There are
also other factors, including cultural differences, that sometimes
deepen these misunderstandings.

12/13-18/02Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's Speech at the Herzlia Conference December 4,
2002. The past two years have been a difficult and
painful test for Israel's national strength. The callousness and
brutality of the terrorists was aimed - first and foremost - at
undermining the sense of justness of the people of Zion. This is not the
place to ask what led the PA Chairman to question the inner strength and
determination which has always characterized the citizens of Israel, but
it is clear that the terror has not defeated and will never defeat the
State of Israel.

12/11/02Saudi
Columnist: "Our Youths Must be Re-educated... Violence Must be
Discarded" The Extremists have Corrupted the Minds of
Our Youth "The recent terrorist attack in Kuwait in which an
American soldier and two assailants were killed, and another American
soldier was wounded, must be subjected to a careful study. It was strong
evidence of the deep influence exerted by the extremist concept of Jihad
on certain youths, as a result of which, [they] have lost the power to
think rationally."

12/10/02Abrams
Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle By STEVEN R. WEISMAN/NY
Times. Elliott Abrams, a pugnacious conservative and
passionate advocate of Israel, is no stranger to Washington's policy
wars. Mr. Abrams's appointment thrilled those who had criticized the
administration for being too tough on Israel and too deferential to the
Palestinians. But it dismayed those, especially at the State Department,
who want Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza.

12/9/02Which way out. Report from the Herzliya Conference/Jerusalem Post.
The two and quarter year-long war with the Palestinians, escalation of
the global - as well as the local - terrorist threat, and the likelihood
of war with Iraq combine to test Israel's resolve and challenge the
country's security. In this international environment, the Third Annual
Herzliya Conference convened from December 2-4 to debate 'The National
Security of Israel in a New Strategic Landscape.'

12/9/02Both
sides now. By Avihai Becker/Ha'aretz. Born in Taibe, Prof.
Gehad Mazarweh left Israel as a youngster and forged a career as a
psychoanalyst in Germany. The Arab-Israeli conflict, he says, can be
seen in psychological terms - and he prescribes a treatment.

12/9/02Prepare
for a Palestinian state BY DAVID NEWMAN/Jerusalem Post.
One doesn't need opposition leader Amram Mitzna to tell us that there
will eventually be a Palestinian state. After all, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon repeatedly stated this fact in the runup to the Likud party
leadership election. It was repeated over the weekend by Israeli
Ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, and again on Sunday by
Chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon in a private meeting with American
government officials in Washington where he made it clear that many of
the West Bank settlements will eventually have to be removed.

12/9/02A Plan
for Peace and Democracy By Natan Sharansky. (First appeared in
the Wall Street Journal 7/3/02.) For many years, a psychological
Rubicon had blocked any hope for achieving a genuine peace between
Israelis and Palestinians. With his speech last week, President Bush has
led American diplomacy across that Rubicon, and hope for a genuine peace
has finally emerged.

12/6/02Mideast
Peace? Let's Start With the Rule of Law. By ROBERT L. POLLOCK/Wall
Street Journal. In 1996, Mahmoud el Farra returned to the
Gaza Strip. He had lived 30 years in Los Angeles, where he raised a
family and built a construction business. He was precisely the sort of
entrepreneur the emerging Palestinian Authority sorely needed, and in
those heady days he built its first modern flour mill. But the business
struggled against competition from Israeli imports, and PA officials
began pressuring Mr. Farra to sell them shares. Led by Mohammed Rashid,
Yasser Arafat's money man, they soon gained control of the company. Two
days later they closed the market to Israeli flour.

12/5/02Sharon:
Concessions are irreversible. Herb Keinon/Jerusalem Post.
Political concessions to the Palestinians in the past, like those to
come in the future, are "irreversible," Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon said Wednesday in a wide-ranging speech outlining his vision of a
diplomatic process that will culminate in a Palestinian state

12/5/02Sharon’s
Palestinian speech may backfire. DEBKAfile Political
Analysis. Israeli prime minister and Likud leader Ariel
Sharon delivered his first major campaign speech Wednesday December 4,
declaring that after the January 28 general election he will ask his new
government to endorse the Bush peace outline and the creation of a
Palestinian state with Yasser Arafat as its “symbolic” head.

12/3/02Saudi
Minister of Interior, Prince Nayef Ibn Abd Al-Aziz: "Who
Committed the Events of September 11... I Think They [the Zionists] are
Behind these Events... [Arab] Mass Media Should Condemn Terrorism, Warn
Arab Nationals of it, and Let Our Voice be Heard by the World... It is
Impossible that 19 Youths, Including 15 Saudis, Carried Out the
Operation of September 11."

11/28-12/2/02Defusing
the Holy Bomb By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN/NYTimes. As you approach the
end of Ramadan and we approach our Thanksgiving, I thought it would be a
good time for me to share with you some concerns. Let me be blunt: I am
increasingly worried that we are heading toward a civilizational war.

11/27/02Arafat
Deputy: Uprising Was a Mistake. By KARIN LAUB/AP.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s deputy was quoted as
saying the armed uprising against Israel was a mistake and must be
halted, but Palestinian militiamen said Wednesday they would renew
attacks in Israel to avenge two leaders killed in a mysterious West Bank
explosion. (Updated)

11/26/02TEL
AVIV DISPATCH Exit Pols by Yossi Klein Halevi/New Republic.
On a wall in the office of this country's newest party, Yisrael Acheret
("A Different Israel"), hangs a poster with the images of
David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin. The juxtaposition of the founder of
the Labor Party and the founder of the Likud Party is not coincidental:
The message of this youth-driven reformist party is that the old
left-right divide that has dominated Israeli discourse is over.

11/26/02When
checkpoints really do save lives. By David Ratner/Ha'aretz.
After five long weeks that included a week of training and four weeks of
routine patrols and checkpoint duty, the soldiers will take off their
uniforms and resume their civilian lives. The area will become the
responsibility of another reserve battalion and Lieutenant Colonel
Shlomo, the battalion commander, will go back to his masters degree
studies at Haifa University.

11/26/02In
Shift, Harvard Reinvites Controversial Poet by Patrick Healy/Boston
Globe.Harvard University's English department, in
a surprising reversal, has reinvited writer Tom Paulin to give a poetry
reading on campus, one week after English professors and Paulin canceled
the event because of complaints over Paulin's statements that
Brooklyn-born Jewish settlers in Israel were ''Nazis'' who ''should be
shot dead.''

11/22/02 Barbara Amiel -- a rare, pro-Israel British
columnist, London socialite and wife of publisher Conrad Black -- authored
a piece that puts both the recent Hebron attack and the larger
Israeli-Palestinian conflict in perspective. [David Victor]

Learning
to live with Israel. By Barbara Amiel, London Evening Standard
Twelve Israelis were killed this past weekend in Hebron. Experts discuss
the deaths in ho-hum voices. This, after all, is old news on a rainy
night. The violence, we are told, is the fault of the Israelis who
insist on maintaining small settlements of "hardline" settlers
in Palestinian areas. Some of us listening almost wish it were so: the
solution would be so simple - just withdraw from the settlements. A
small price for the great purchase of peaceful coexistence.

11/21/02Judging
Judaism by the Numbers By DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF/NYTimes.For too
long, the health of Judaism has been defined largely by numbers.
Certainly, this is understandable — a concern traceable to some very
real and recent efforts at eliminating the Jewish population. But must
we forever judge the future of American Judaism as if we were evaluating
the health of an endangered species?

11/21/02Israel’s
shrinking Labor picks new face. DEBKAfile. Amram Mitzna,
57, avowed dove and advocate of negotiations with the Palestinians -
even amid surging terror – was picked as next Labor leader on November
19 in what looked more like a journey down memory lane than a
hard-headed, future-oriented primary election.

11/20/02PCPO Poll of
Palestinians November 11-16,2002. A poll recently conducted by
the PCPO and prepared by Dr.Nabil Kukali
included a random sample of 1041 adults, 18 years and older, from the
West Bank including East Jerusalem.

11/20/02New
U.N. Rights Head Seeks 'Balance' By MARC PERELMAN/The Forward.
The new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is trying to
open a fresh chapter with America's Jewish community after the stormy
tenure of his predecessor. Sergio Vieira de Mello, a veteran U.N.
official from Brazil, said he would try to be less outspoken and more
balanced than the previous commissioner, Mary Robinson, a former Irish
president known for her anti-Israel statements.

11/20/02Not
a word against Arafat. By Amnon Rubinstein/Ha-Retz. Who says the
BBC doesn't interview Israelis? "Hard Talk," broadcast on
November 6, interviewed an Israeli reserve officer for half an hour. The
interviewee was Major Rami Kaplan, one of the refusenik leaders, who
vehemently attacked Israel's occupation policies.

11/17/02Secret
Fatah-Hizballah alliance manifested in Hebron. DEBKAfile Terror
becomes full-scale war on Worshippers Lane in Hebron. Seventeen Israelis
have died in two major Palestinian acts of terror in the last six days,
confronting Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s fresh top team with
their first stiff challenge.

11/15-17/02The
Next War. The New Yorker. Several weeks ago, Richard
Holbrooke, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations,
moderated a discussion on the possibilities of war after September 11th
with the New Yorker writers Jeffrey Goldberg, Isabel Hilton, and
Lawrence Wright, and Leslie Gelb, who is the president of the Council on
Foreign Relations. The panel was part of the New Yorker Festival; here
are some excerpts from the conversation.

11/15/02Jihad
and the Professors by Daniel Pipes/Commentary. LAST SPRING, the
faculty of Harvard College selected a graduating senior named Zayed
Yasin to deliver a speech at the university’s commencement exercises
in June. When the title of the speech—“My American Jihad”—was
announced, it quite naturally aroused questions.

11/14/02Cold
Turkey. By Herb Keinon/Jerusalem Post. Ankara has many
reasons to maintain its relationship with Israel - geopolitics, military
cooperation and access to the US Jewish lobby, but it is not a
connection based on shared values

11/14/02Saddam
Uses Palestinian Terror Proxies for Jordan. DEBKAfile. In
the last few hours, reports have reached DEBKAfile’s military and
intelligence sources that the three thousands Jordanian special forces
and police, after sealing off the southern towns of Ma’an and Kerak
for three days and battling local Islamic zealots, are closing in on
their quarry: the assassins who shot dead the senior American diplomat,
Lawrence Foley...

11/12/02Arafat’s
Road Map: More Killing. DEBKAfile Special Analysis. The
terrorists Yasser Arafat’s Fatah admitted sending to Kibbutz Metzer on
the Israel-West Bank border carried out their killing rampage on Sunday,
November 10, concurrently with the Fatah-Hamas conference taking place
in Cairo under the European Union’s aegis.

11/12/02Divest
Yourself How anti-Semitism taints campus anti-Zionism. By Hanna Rosin.
I remember it well from the Gulf War protests in college: You're sitting
and basking in that mosh-pit oneness of your first teach-in when a
foreign guy in a sweater vest turns up at the podium and suddenly the
whole thing takes an uncomfortable turn, as he goes on about the Zionist
conspiracy and occasionally slips from saying "Israeli" to
"Jew," and everyone's sort of uneasy and wondering if they
should clap.

11/8/02Arab
Press Debates Antisemitic Egyptian Series 'A Knight Without a Horse'.
On November 6th, 2002, some Arab television channels aired the first
segment of a 41-part serial called "A Knight Without a Horse,"
which is based on 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.' The series was
slated for broadcast on Egyptian state television, the Egyptian
"Dream" channel, Iraqi state television and Hizbullah's Al-Manar
channel. The series aroused much debate in the Egyptian and Arab press.
Most writers supported the airing of the series, but a few criticized
Egypt's obsession with anti-semitic writings. Mark Sayegh, a journalist
opposed to the series' broadcast, found an unusual way to express his
protest in his weekly column in the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat.
In his article, titled "The Protocols of the Arab Elders: Enough,
Egypt... Enough," Sayegh presented a reverse scenario – that is,
Israeli television airing a program based on the "Arab
conspiracy" to take over the world:

11/7/02Treatment
of Israel strikes an alien note. Alan M. Dershowitz National Post.
If a visitor from a far away galaxy were to land at an American or
Canadian university and peruse some of the petitions that were
circulating around the campus, he would probably come away with the
conclusion that the Earth is a peaceful and fair planet with only one
villainous nation determined to destroy the peace and to violate human
rights.

11/7/02An
Egyptian Intellectual Campaigns to Change the Religious Discourse Led by
Al-Azhar. At a recent symposium held in Cairo by the Egyptian
Writers' Association, Egyptian intellectual and poet Ahmad Abd Al-M'uti
Higazi sharply criticized Al-Azhar University "for producing
terrorism." Higazi attacked Al-Azhar's Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid
Tantawi and Egyptian mufti Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, stating, "I do not
consider what they say to be something I must listen to and
obey..."

11/6/02Saudi Hand behind
Egypt’s Anti-Jewish TV Serial. DEBKAfile’s Middle East
sources report “The Horse without Horseman” was produced by Arab
Radio and Television of Saudi Arabia as an epic that was written,
directed and played by Egyptians. It portrays the fictional Elders, the
purported blueprint for Jewish global domination, as historical fact
and, in a mishmash of periods, makes it also the guiding principle of
Israeli policy.

11/6/02The Paterson
'Protocols' by Daniel Pipes New York Post. For some weeks now,
the Arab Voice [Paterson, N.J.] has been serializing an Arabic-language
version of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in its pages
(but not - revealingly - on www.arabvoice.com, its Web site).

11/6/02New
Yorker bests Times on anti-Semitism coverage. Andrea Levin.
New York Times editors could take a lesson in fearless,
information-packed news reporting from a remarkable two-part article on
Hezbollah by Jeffrey Goldberg in the October 14 and 28 issues of the New
Yorker magazine. Unlike the Times' deceptive portrayals of Hezbollah as
a social service agency happily transforming itself from a violent past
(since pushing Israel out of southern Lebanon), Goldberg describes a
deadly organization fueled by Nazi-like anti-Semitic fervor and bent on
the extinction of Israel.

The very most recent symptom of the disease may well be Finland's
recent refusal to sell their best-in-class poison gas detectors to
Israel. The reason? Oh, it would violate the EU prohibition on the
sale of "dual-use" equipment to countries in conflict. Well
that certainly makes good sense. This may be totally unrelated but the
foreign minister of Finland, Erkki Tuominioja, recently made the
following statement about the country to which his nation refuses to
sell gas detectors: "I am appalled at the Israeli policy of
suppression, humiliation, subordination and impoverishment towards the
Palestinians." Hmmm.

Can't put my finger on it but there's something a little disturbing
about a former ally of Nazi Germany purposely putting Jews at risk of
death by poison gas. Maybe it's just me but if you find this, oh I don't
know...disgusting, feel free to let Finland's foreign minister know via
an email to his special assistant, Ms. Piritta Asunmaa, at
piritta.asunmaa@formin.fi . I did.

For the Zuckerman piece thanks to U of M professor, George Bornstein,
and U of M Regent, Andrea Fischer Newman (did I mention you should vote
for her on Tuesday?). Thanks to Chicago's Richard Baehr for the info on
Finland's self-inflicted disgrace. (David Victor)

10/31/02
Sharon’s
Minority Government Will Survive Labor’s Walkout. DEBKAfile Political
Analysis. Ariel Sharon shows no sign of knuckling under to
the demand from his resigned defense minister, the Labor leader Binyamin
Ben Eliezer, for an early election next March or April. Labor’s
walkout from the unity government leaves Sharon with a minority
government of 55 out of 120 Knesset seats instead of the handy 80 his
unity government enjoyed for one year, ten months. But he has prospects.

10/31/02 Back
aboard the ship of fools. By Ari Shavit, Ha'aretz. The
state of Israel is threatened. It is surrounded by external threats,
some threaten its existence. But the most dangerous threat to the state
of Israel is not external, but
internal - a psychological threat. The most dangerous threat to Israel
is the threat of intellectual dishonesty.

10/31/02 Jerusalem
Post Editorial: Good-bye and good riddance. After nearly 22
months of partnership, the national unity government, which Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon worked so hard to preserve, has collapsed. After
trading increasingly caustic barbs, followed by on-again, off-again
negotiations that seemed on the verge of resolving the crisis, Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer handed in his resignation at 5:50 p.m.
Wednesday, ignoring pleas from some of Israel's top industrialists and
legal practitioners including, at times, this newspaper to put aside
narrow political interests for the sake of the country.

10/30/02 The
Sniper Trail. Wall Street Journal "An important
question remains unanswered: Were Muhammad and John Lee Malvo 'lone
madmen' or are they linked in some way to Islamic terrorists?"

10/29/02 The
Snipers: Crazy or Jihadis? by Daniel Pipes New York Post."...
Muhammad might have seen himself as a foot soldier in the jihad (holy
war) against the United States, and that he took up arms to terrorize
Americans. Media across the country as one, however, shut their eyes to
this explanation."

10/28/02 Goodbye to
Europe? by Victor Davis Hanson. IN THE aftermath of the
catastrophe that struck the United States last September 11, few things
can have been more dismaying to Americans than the attitude adopted by
many of our closest European allies, whose sympathy for the loss of life
was quickly replaced by skepticism, if not outright hostility, toward
American motives and American policy. The ensuing months seem only to
have heightened rather than diminished their animosity.

10/26-27/02
Pro-Chechen
Islamist Website: Islamic Religious Interpretation Permits Killing of
Prisoners. Drawing upon Islamic religious sources; e.g., the Koran and
its interpretations as well as other traditions about the Prophet’s
conduct, the articles advocate a position which permits the killing of
prisoners if their killing benefits the Muslims. The following are the
main elements in the articles: “A Guide to the Perplexed about the
Permissibility of Killing Prisoners”

10/24/02
The
Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism by Barry Rubin From Foreign Affairs,
November/December 2002. Despite what many argue, Arab and Muslim
rage at the United States has had very little to do with actual U.S.
policies--policies that have been remarkably pro-Arab over the past 50
years. Promoting anti-Americanism is simply the best way Muslim leaders
have found to distract their publics from the real problem: internal
mismanagement. New U.S. policies or a PR campaign will not change
matters.

10/24/02
Crisis
at Moscow Theater Continues. Pravda. As of 1:30 a.m. Thurs.(USA), the hostage standoff at the Palace of Culture continues. As
many as 50 Chechen rebels inside of the famous Moscow theater are
holding an estimated 600 men, women and children. The rebel’s demands
are simple; Russia must remove all of its forces from Chechnya at once,
or these criminals/terrorists have vowed to blow themselves, the
building and the remaining victims to smithereens.

10/20-27/02
Will the Arrow Find
Its Target? By Leslie Susser/Jerusalem Report. Its makers are
confident -- but not certain -- that Israel’s missile defense system
can counter any threat from Iraq. It is the stock scenario: with Iraq
reeling from a massive American attack, a desperate Saddam Hussein fires
Scud missiles at Israel, hoping to drag it into the war and turn other
Arab countries against the United States.

10/20-27/02
Iraq
First. By Ehud Ya'ari/Jerusalem Report. Arafat thinks that
another Gulf War will lead to an international conference. The
Israeli-Palestinian arena is now dominated by Iraq. All calculations are
subordinated to the expectation of war.

10/20-27/02
Is
there anything dumber than repudiating Christians who support Israel? By
Jonathan S. Tobin. A "peace protest" in New
York's Central Park was the scene of vicious anti-Israel epithets
uttered from both the podium and the Palestinian flag-waving audience.
It was organized by a group called "Not in Our Name," which
previously sponsored a full-page ad in The New York Times opposing war
with Iraq, and also denouncing Israeli policies but not Arab terrorism.
It was supported by Hollywood leftists like Susan Sarandon, Ed Asner,
feminist guru Gloria Steinhem and the Jewish far-left's Tikkun Community
impresario Michael Lerner.

10/18/02 As you'll pick up from various unflattering references in the
article below, The Economist is no friend of Israel. So when a couple of
its pages are devoted to proving wrong those who allege Israel stands in
breach of UN Security Resolutions in a manner no different than Iraq, it
carries a bit of extra weight. (David Victor) Double
standards. From The Economist.

10/17/02 Campus Hypocrisy By THOMAS
L. FRIEDMAN. Memo to professors and students leading the
divestiture campaign: Your campaign for divestiture from Israel is
deeply dishonest and hypocritical, and any university that goes along
with it does not deserve the title of institution of higher learning.
Memo to Israel's supporters: Just because there are anti-Semites who
blame Israel for everything that is wrong does not mean that whatever
Israel does is right, or in its self-interest, or just.

A: This is not one of SAFE's
principles. However, it is included in the conference's guiding
principles as they were adopted at the 1st Student Conference in
Berkeley, California. One could argue that Zionism is racism on numerous
grounds. First, any nationalist movement is inherently exclusionary, and
thus racist. Furthermore, and more pertinent to this particular
nationalist movement, Zionism is defined as the creation of a Jewish
homeland in Palestine. Clearly, this excludes the indigenous Palestinian
population, and the result has been the diaspora of millions of
Palestinians, creating the world's longest-lasting current refugee
problem."

10/9/02 University
of Michigan President Opposes Divestment. University of Michigan
President Mary Sue Coleman has expressed her opposition (Click
for her email) to divesting the school's funds from companies that
do business with Israel. Coleman released the following statement
regarding the Palestine Solidarity Conference which will be taking place
at the University of Michigan as well as the recent talks about
divestment on campus.

10/9/02 Michigan
Hillel Says: Invest in Israel. Students at the University of
Michigan, among the country’s leading pro-Israel activists, have
launched an Invest in Israel campaign to counter a national effort to
prod university officials to divest from companies that do business in
Israel.

10/9/02 Invest
in peace, invest in Israel. By David Post, The Michigan Daily.
The upcoming Second National Student Conference on the Palestinian
Solidarity Conference is a primary example of why peace in the Middle
East has not yet been achieved.

10/8/02 Suicide
Bomber's Father: Let Hamas and Jihad Leaders Send Their Own Sons.
In a letter to the editor of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat,(1)
Abu Saber M. G., the father of a young Palestinian who carried out a
suicide bombing in an Israeli city, wrote: "I can find no better
words with which to begin my letter than the words of Allah, in his
precious book [the Koran]: 'Act for the sake of Allah, and do not throw
yourselves to destruction with your own hands.'(2) I write this letter
with a languishing heart and with eyes that have not ceased weeping. We
must, today more than at any other time, obey this Koranic verse, act
for the sake of Allah, and refrain from carrying out acts that will
throw us to destruction."

10/4-6/02 A
Challenge to House Master Hanson. By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ.In my 38 years of teaching at Harvard Law School, I don’t recall
ever writing in praise of any action by a Harvard president, but this
time I must congratulate President Lawrence H. Summers for his
willingness to say out loud what many of us in the Harvard community
have long believed: namely, that singling out Israel, among all the
countries in the world, for divestment, is an action which is
anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.

10/3/02 A
shameful contagion. BY MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, US
News. Europe is sick again. The memory of 6 million
murdered Jews, it seems, is no longer inoculation against the virus of
antisemitism. It has taken hold, on the supposedly liberal left as well
as the xenophobic right, all too long unchecked by feeble political
leadership with one eye on the vengeful sentiments of millions of
anti-Zionist immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The
historic antisemitism denying individual Jews the right to live as equal
members of society has horribly coalesced with a new version of
antisemitism that denies the collective expression of the Jewish people,
namely Israel, to live as an equal member of the family of nations.

10/3/02
The
Divestment Petition Demonizes Jews. By JAY M. HARRIS. In
the hope of shifting the debate on divestment from Israel to the real
issue—the nature of the divestment campaign—and not the specious
accusations regarding University President Lawrence H. Summers’ speech
on the issue, I would like to suggest why I believe the campaign is
properly characterized as “anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.”

10/3/02
A
familiar ring to Israel criticism. By Robert Leikind, HARVARD UNIVERSITY President Lawrence H. Summers recently gave a
speech in which he decried the emergence of anti-Semitism and argued
that some ''serious and thoughtful people'' are ''taking actions that
are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.'' His comments
aroused indignation from a broad spectrum of people who accused him of
stifling open debate by threatening to call Israel's critics bigots.
They missed the point.

10/3/02
Harvard president’s
remarks, Web site ignite campus wars. By Rachel Pomerance.
Even before Daniel Pipes arrived at the University of Oklahoma for a
speech this week, his opponents were waiting for him. The Oklahoma Daily
campus paper carried two letters to the editor on Tuesday blasting
Campus Watch, a Web site Pipes created that monitors professors and
institutions it deems anti-Israeli or anti-American.

10/2/02
Divest
and Conquer By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ. A nasty and immoral
campaign is being waged around the world to damage Israel's economy by
coercing universities and other institutions into divesting their
holdings in Israel, as some of them did from South Africa during the
apartheid regime. There is no justification for the comparison between
the two, and the divestment effort should be opposed by anyone who
supports human rights.

10/2/02
The
rise and fall of the Intifada By Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram. On
the second anniversary of the Intifada, its future appears more
dependent on what happens to Saddam Hussein than to Yasser Arafat.
Official Arab support for the Palestinian Intifada is clearly dwindling.
The praise from the highest levels that came from across the Arab world
for the Palestinian uprising when it first started on 28 September 2000
is all but gone.

10/2/02
Squandered
Support. Patrick Clawson, a top Middle East expert and
economist, explains how poor governance and continuing violence have
offset the potential benefits of the vast amount of aid that has poured
into the territories.

10/1/02
Sharon,
victim of his own bulldozers. By Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz. In
the continuing Greek tragedy of the Israel-Arab conflict, with Ariel
Sharon the prisoner of his own preferred instrument of policy, the
bulldozer, could a perceived victory by the Palestinians mean a triumph
for Arab proponents of a sharp turn away from violence?

9/20-22/02
Analysis
/ Not a time to set the territories on fire. By Ze'ev Schiff.
Israel has found itself in a situation in which its only possible
response to a suicide attack in the heart of Tel Aviv appears to be to
tighten its hold on Palestinian cities in the West Bank and to keep up
the pressure on Palestinian civilians and on Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat, while also trying to locate those directly
responsible for the attacks.

9/20-22/02 Thou
shalt judge our Jewish leaders. By David D. Perlmutter.
"...every day on television news and in the paper appear the usual
suspects of Jewish "leaders" in action. Yet, by that
self-defined criterion we can ask Ronald Reagan's campaign question: Are
we better off today for their leadership? Where are our glorious leaders
in the fight that will decide the fate of the Jewish people and of
Western civilization?

9/20-22/02 The
world's collective amnesia. By Joseph Farah. Yasser Arafat may
have lost some of his personal political clout of late, but the
political movement he began – demanding justice for Palestinian Arabs
expelled from their homes in 1948 – remains as strong as ever.

9/19/02
AJC
Launches Pro-Israel Television Ad Campaign"The continuing
strength of the affinity Americans feel towards Israelis stands squarely
on the core values of democracy and pluralism. The fact is that Israel
is the only real democracy in the Middle East – a region desperately
in need of reforms, freedom, and hope." Watch the television ad
using either Real Player or Windows Media on AJC's website.

9/19/02
The War on
Campus by Daniel Pipes. Last week, two prominent Middle
Easterners traveled to two North American campuses to deliver speeches
mainly about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Both met protests. One succeeded
in giving the speech; the other did not. Therein hangs a tale.

9/18/02
An
open letter to British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks By Isi Liebler.
Dear Chief Rabbi, We have known each other for a long time and as one
who considers himself a personal friend and has always admired you as a
profound religious thinker, I have thought long and hard before
committing to paper what I have to say in this open and public fashion.
I feel compelled to do so because the issues involved go to the very
heart of Israel's critical self-examination, indeed to the very heart of
Israel's right to be.

9/17/02
Iran
on the Brink. The Atlantic. Iraq and Israel may dominate
the headlines these days, but many who are well-versed in Middle Eastern
affairs agree that the linchpin of the region has almost always been,
and still is, Iran. "If history repeats itself," Middle East
specialist Reuel Marc Gerecht wrote recently, "as goes Iran, so
will go the Muslim world."

9/17/02
An
Arab parliament that speaks its mind by Zvi Bar'el.Between the
burdens of the occupation, the poverty, the gang and organization wars,
the curfew, the closures, the liquidations, the home demolitions and the
relocations, someone latched onto a thin golden thread that came out of
the frayed and tattered Provisional Palestinian Constitution - and
fomented a revolution

9/17/02The
Events of September 11 and the Arab Media: The New Antisemitic Myth.
In March 2002, MEMRI released a study of the Arab media's response to
the events of September 11, titled, "A New Antisemitic Myth in the
Middle East Media: The September 11 Attacks Were Perpetrated by the
Jews." The study, with a foreword by Congressman Tom Lantos, is
available online at http://www.memri.org/sr.html and as a PDF file at:
http://www.memri.org/book/AntisemiticMythBook.pdf .

9/12/02The
massacring of the truth. By Amnon Rubinstein.A new film by
Mohammad Bakri, "Jenin, Jenin: A One-Sided Movie" portrays the
IDF as an embodiment of evil and cruelty, and its soldiers as the
butchers of helpless citizens in Jenin. The movie was the subject of
Ha'aretz Magazine's article "Taking sides," by Vered Levy-Barzilai,
on September 6.

9/10/02`It's
time to learn the lesson' By Danny Rubinstein. For the first time
since the outbreak of the intifada two years ago, the official journal
of the Palestinian Authority last week published severe criticism of
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leadership, and the
Palestinian public as a whole - for rejecting the proposals that were
put forward by former U.S. President Bill Clinton at Camp David in July
2000.

9/10/02Legitimacy
Demands Leadership by: Nabil Amr.Open Letter to Yasser Arafat.
I have no idea whether this letter will reach you, or, like many before
it, will be pulled from the presses due to the current political timing.

9/9/02
The following three articles present the most articulate statements I
have seen of
the "right" and "left" views of the possibility and
path to peace. The articles
are long and worth your time.

8/30/02 The
enemy within. By Ari Shavit, Ha-aretz. The confrontation with the
Palestinians is an existential, cancerous threat to Israel, according to
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. In his first interview since assuming
his post last month, Ya'alon attacks the Israeli pathology of
self-blame, criticizes the media and accuses various elements of
undermining him in the Shehadeh affair. No, he's not right-wing, just
the same old kibbutznik at heart.

9/6-8/02Rosh
Hashanah 5763: Hope from Israel By Debbie Berman, Israel Insider. It
has been a difficult year in Israel. Many here, as in the United States,
have been personally affected by terrorism to a degree never before
experienced. And yet here we find ourselves on the eve of another new
year, regrouping our strengths, healing our wounds and dusting off one
of the most well guarded, tried and true secret Israeli weapons: hope.

9/6-8/02
Failing
to use the calm wisely by Ze'ev Schiff. There have been several
periods of calm in the acts of terrorism and other hostilities against
Israel since the onset of the military confrontation initiated by the
Palestinians two years ago.

9/5/02 Lawsuit:
Iraq Knew of 9/11 Attacks, Washington Post. A lawsuit filed
Wednesday claims Iraq knew Osama bin Laden was targeting the Pentagon
and New York City prior to Sept. 11 and that it sponsored terrorists for
a decade to avenge its defeat in the Gulf War.

9/5/02 The
Palestinian intifada has been a disaster, editorial The Globe &
Mail.The second anniversary of the intifada occurs later this
month. The Palestinians have a sad history often made worse by their
leaders, but the violence that has engulfed Israel and the Palestinian
territories seems particularly grievous since it followed a time when
peace appeared so close.

9/2/02 Defining
Terrorism: Is One Man’s Terrorist Another Man’s Freedom Fighter? by
Boaz Ganor. The statement, “One man’s terrorist is
another man’s freedom fighter,” has become not only a cliché, but
also one of the most difficult obstacles in coping with terrorism. The
matter of definition and conceptualization is usually a purely
theoretical issue—a mechanism for scholars to work out the appropriate
set of parameters for the research they intend to undertake.

THE DIGNITY OF
DIFFERENCE. The Chief Rabbi's Official Spokesperson, Jeremy Newmark
has responded to recent press coverage as follows: "It will be
clear to anyone who reads the actual Guardian interview, as opposed to
the front page headlines, that the Chief Rabbi, expressed passionate
support for Israel, in a newspaper that has often taken a critical
stance.

In doing so, the Chief Rabbi has continued his work, undertaken since
the start of this conflict, in seeking to achieve a deeper
understanding, beyond the Jewish community, of the challenges faced by
the State of Israel.

That his expression of the pain and tragedy that Israelis are going
through should be construed as criticism of Israel is absurd.

8/29/02 How
about a little respect? By Mike Cohen In 1998, Chief Rabbi
Jonathan Sacks of Great Britain made an important statement at the
Orthodox Union West Coast convention in Los Angeles that I have been
quoting ever since: "Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism;
non-Jews are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism."

8/23/02
Mort Zuckerman makes a pretty thorough case for ridding the world of
Saddam Hussein. When reading this consider too that no less an
internationalist and diplomat than Shimon Peres recently went on record
advocating Hussein's forcible removal as soon as possible. In his words,
attacking Iraq now would be "quite dangerous, but postponing it
would be more dangerous." As Peres knows all too well, Israel will
be the first nation struck by Saddam if we go in after him, so you might
say Israel has some skin in the game. This is an exceptionally
meaningful statement given the source. (David Victor)
(This article is a rebuttal to Scowcroft's article below)US
News & World Report Editorial 8/26/02 No time for equivocation BY
MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN•EDITOR-IN-CHIEF America, and Americans,
stand at a historic moment. Traditionally, democracies do not go to war
barring attack on themselves or an ally. So it is that the question now
is asked: How can the United States justify initiating hostilities
against Iraq at a time of peace? It is the wrong question. Better to ask
how America can justify not going to war against Saddam Hussein–and at
the earliest possible moment.

8/23/02
Don't
Attack Saddam By BRENT SCOWCROFT. Our nation is presently engaged
in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various
strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity.

Regardless
of what one may think of O'Reilly, he is on target with the case
against Iraq. For Israel, the destruction of Iraq is crucial. It
is probably critical for the future of Judaism. When Sadam has the
means, he will surely throw them at Israel, just as he did in the
Gulf War. However, a few years down the road or even sooner, he
will be more accurate and deadly. Can our people in Israel
and the Diaspora survive this kind of attack? What does a nuclear
missile on Tel Aviv portend for Israel ? Sadam wants to be known
as the mother of all Arabs. He will use all means to prove it.
(Marvin Gerber)

8/12/02
A
friendly reminder by Bill O'Reilly. There is a life lesson in
watching how America's alleged allies are dealing with the Saddam
Hussein situation. Just this week, Germany and Saudi Arabia said
flat out that the United States could expect no help from them in
attempting to remove the Iraqi tyrant. The Saudi behavior was
predictable, as that nation has proved over and over it will not
cooperate with America's war on Islamic terror. But Germany's
stance is extremely interesting.

Reader Comment

8/15/02The
following question/comment is not, in any way, rhetorical. I am the
first to admit my confusion and would very much like you to elaborate on
your statement that "When Saddam has the means, he will surely
throw them at Israel".

Dear
Marvin, It's a given that Saddam is a brute, in relation to his region
and his own people. Is it also a given that he is crazy or suicidal?
What, in your opinion, is the benefit to Saddam if he targets Israel
with nuclear weapons given the absolute certainty that Israel has the
means and the will (under a first strike attack from Iraq) to, at a
minimum, destroy Baghdad and Saddam with it? Is he more interested in
honorific eulogies from the Arab "street" than in staying
alive in a city that still physically exists? We've had tyrants before
who have controlled nuclear weapons; Stalin and Mao. Yet, both
understood the results of using them and never did. Is Saddam's hatred
of Israel so powerful it would override all logic and his desire to
live?

(Steve
Schiff)

Dear
Steve, You asked "Is Saddam's hatred of Israel so powerful it would
override all logic and his desire to live?" Yet, isn't that true of
every suicide bomber? Hasn't their hatred of Israel overridden all logic
and their desire to live?

Tantum
religio potuit suadere malorum.

"A great religion can persuade of evils."

(Liz
Fried)

Don't
Attack Saddam by BRENT SCOWCROFT. Our nation is presently engaged in
a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various
strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity. The Bush
administration vows regime change, but states that no decision has been
made whether, much less when, to launch an invasion.

8/31-9/1/02 Analysis
/ A new page in Zionist history by Avirama Golan. In its
decision yesterday, the High Court of Justice turned a new page in the
history of Zionist thinking. Even in the short three-page synopsis,
concepts such as "distributive justice," "saving the open
spaces" and "public interest" are dominant. This
nomenclature indicates that the court has adopted a clearly civic
discourse.

8/30/02 The
enemy within. By Ari Shavit, Ha-aretz. The confrontation with the
Palestinians is an existential, cancerous threat to Israel, according to
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. In his first interview since assuming
his post last month, Ya'alon attacks the Israeli pathology of
self-blame, criticizes the media and accuses various elements of
undermining him in the Shehadeh affair. No, he's not right-wing, just
the same old kibbutznik at heart.

8/30/02 The
sound of one opinion clapping By Uzi Benziman. When asked why he had
chosen to go public with his views (in the rabbinical forum and in
Ha'aretz Magazine), Ya'alon explained that he is "the chief of
staff of the nation of Israel and not only of the political level."

8/29/02 Time
for Judaism to go global too By Yair Sheleg. Settlement theology has
a new cultural hero. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, long considered its
undisputed spiritual leader isn't up to date, suggest some thinkers who
want a philosophy that would better deal with the problems of the hour.
And so, two articles in the settler journal Nekudah are promoting the
ideas of Elijah Benamozegh, a 19th century rabbi of Livorno, Italy.

8/26/02 SAUDIS
PAID BIN LADEN HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. Senior members of the Saudi
royal family paid "protection money" totaling at least $300
million to Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban to prevent them from
attacking targets in Saudi Arabia, the London Sunday Times reported
yesterday.

8/23/02 The
Metamorphosis of the Secretary of the Arab Psychiatrists Association. Secretary
of the Arab Psychiatrists Association Dr. Adel Sadeq, who also heads the
Department of Mental Health at Ein Shams University in Cairo, is known
for his extremist views. In an article and television interview in April
2002,(1) Dr. Sadeq praised suicide attacks, declared that the Arabs'
goal was "to throw Israel into the sea," and
"professionally" diagnosed U.S. President George W. Bush as
"stupid." It would seem that the uproar Dr. Sadeq sparked with
his statements affected him profoundly. In a recent article in the
Egyptian daily Hadith Al-Madina, he makes a complete change from his
previous position:

8/22/02 Jihad
101 by Martin Kramer. Professors and Pundits: An occasional column
devoted to makers and brokers of ideas. Predict this. Who even imagined
the possibility of a September 11? Well, you might say, Steven Emerson
and Daniel Pipes did. Well, you are wrong. Richard Bulliet, professor of
Islamic history and past director of Columbia University's Middle East
Institute, now claims that the academic "experts" on Islam had
seen it coming all along.

8/21/02
SADDAM'S
RAP SHEET By DANIEL PIPES & JONATHAN SCHANZER, NY Post.
CONSIDER the paradox: Almost every government agrees that Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein is an appalling monster and shudders at the prospect of
his acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet those same governments are also
furiously signaling their disapproval of an American-led military effort
to depose him.

8/20/02 Demon
Israel' and the ivory tower by Noga Tarnopolsky.
Dr. Shira Wolosky, a lecturer in literature at the department of
American studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found it hard to
understand why no one present got up and protested and why such silence
prevailed at a conference held a few months ago at Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

8/20/02A
command of contradictions by Ze'ev Schiff. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan,
who just stepped down as head of the Central Command, is unique for
having served as commanding general of a difficult front longer than any
other top officers in this kind of conflict.

8/19/02Fog
of War By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN. "... in case you missed it: two
years into the Palestinian uprising, Palestinian factions were meeting
to determine why they are fighting and whether their means are
legitimate."

8/17-18/02That's
my boy, by Guy Lawson,The Guardian. Technically he is an
unemployed 38 year old who spends a lot of time with his dad. But in
reality, Omri Sharon, the Israeli prime minister's son, may be the most
powerful backroom operator in the Middle East. As well as being a
devoted follower of his father, he also has the ear of Yasser Arafat. In
a rare interview he talks to Guy Lawson

8/16/02Liberal
Arab Intellectuals on Their Governments' Information Campaign Plans. Since
September 11, high ranking Arab government officials, as well as the
Arab media, have been contemplating the need for an information campaign
that would present Arab positions to a Western audience "in
language the West understands." A number of liberal Arab
intellectuals have mocked this idea. The following are excerpts from
articles authored by two prominent liberal Arab intellectuals on the
topic:

8/16/02Jordan
Prince Said To Seek Iraqi Throne Meets With Wolfowitz By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF. Former crown prince Hassan of Jordan is not on
the guest list of a high-level meeting between the main Iraqi opposition
groups and American officials scheduled for Friday in Washington.
Nevertheless, he is bound to loom large as participants grapple with the
all-important question of who runs post-Saddam Baghdad. Rumors are rife
that the 55-year-old Hassan is angling to become king of Iraq.

8/15/02
Israel’s
Peculiar Position By Eric Hoffer. This article, written by the late
Eric Hoffer 34 years ago, is uncannily contemporary. Some truths never
change. Hoffer was a Non-Jewish American social philosopher. He was born
in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer,
published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.

8/14/02RICO
Arafat By Bennett M. Epstein. Yasser Arafat's chief deputy, Saeb
Erekat, a member of the Palestinian delegation meeting in Washington
recently with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, howled in protest
when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a televised speech to his
nation, called the leaders of the Palestinian Authority a "gang of
murderers." It was a charge that for Erekat and company, must have
hit too close to home. (Read the Koby Mandell Act HR
2098, S
1377)

8/14/02
Islam's Future by Daniel Pipes, New York Post. 'I am surprised
at your lack of courage, Mr. Pipes," one reader scolded me.
"Your point of view is for people who believe in the tooth fairy
and Santa Claus," opined another. "You really dropped the ball
on this one!" "I hope you are not beginning to lose your
nerve." "Totally wrong." Or, more charitably: "Maybe
your hope is overshadowing your understanding of the truth." (prior
op-ed)

8/13/02 The
Saudi Way By SIMON HENDERSON.The recent statement by Saudi
Arabia's foreign minister that the U.S. will not be allowed to use Saudi
soil to launch an attack on Iraq is further proof that the House of Saud
is not our "ally" in the war on terror.

8/13/02 The
Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define By Youssef M. Ibrahim.There
are people inside the American defense establishment -- the most
powerful, technologically sophisticated military in the history of
mankind -- who believe that the greatest threat they face today may come
from followers of an early 18th century religious extremist who called
for a renewal of Islamic spirit, moral cleansing and the stripping away
of all innovations to Islam since the seventh century. Those disciples
are known as Wahabis.

8/8/02
Lessons
From Sri Lanka By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN. It's often
forgotten that while suicide bombing started in the Middle East, the
people who perfected suicide as a weapon of war were the Tamil Tigers
militia here in Sri Lanka, the island-state off the southern tip of
India. In the last decade, Tamil suicide bombers, many of them women,
killed some 1,500 people, including an Indian prime minister and a Sri
Lankan president. And in a bizarre twist, the Tigers filmed many of
their suicide bombings to show and motivate their troops.

8/7/02
Truth
Massacred By Richard Cohen, Washington Post. It has the only
army in the Middle East in which reservists have refused to serve for
reasons of conscience -- an option I wouldn't recommend to any soldier
in any Arab army. Israel, it can be argued, has the "most humane
army in the world."

8/7/02
On
Being Disliked It’s an America thing, by Victor Davis Hansen.Rather
than creating new programs to teach others about America, I would prefer
that our government instruct Americans about the exceptional history of
America, reinaugurate civic education in the schools, explain that
racism, sexism, and prejudice are endemic in the human species — but
under the American system of government can be identified, discussed,
and then ameliorated.

8/7/02
Palestinians
Cheer Carnage By MICHAEL B. OREN, Wall Street Journal. In Gaza
last week, crowds of children reveled and sang while adults showered
them with candies. The cause for celebration: the cold-blooded murder of
at least seven people -- five of them Americans -- and the maiming of 80
more by a terrorist bomb on the campus of Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

8/5/02
New
Palestinian party calls for secular, democratic state. Jerusalem
Post. Bassam Abu Sharif, an adviser to Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat, yesterday released the program of his new
political party the Palestine Democratic Party (PDP) -- which calls for
a peace agreement with Israel, and a Palestinian constitution which
ensures secular, democratic government, equal rights, separation of
judicial, executive, and legislative powers, and a free market economy.

8/5/02
Operation
'maybe this time' By Amos Harel, Ha'aretz. For the last three
and a half months the IDF has not touched the Casbah of Nablus.
Operation Determined Path may have been going on for the last month and
a half, but on the ground it has left pockets of terror, the Casbah
being the most conspicuous among them.

8/3-4/02
David Victor comments: Preeminent mid-east scholar and Princeton
professor emeritus, Bernard Lewis, gave an enlightening interview
recently in which he sought to answer virtually every Westerner's
question about the world of Islam: What went wrong? Thanks to Richard
Baehr in Chicago. Hot
Type: Bernard Lewis Interview: What Went Wrong? Western Impact and
Middle Eastern Response. CBC. "In the course of the twentieth century it has become
abundantly clear in the Middle East and all over the lands of Islam that
things have indeed gone badly wrong. Compared to its millennial rival,
Christendom, the world of Islam has become poor, weak and
ignorant."

8/3-4/02 Hamas
to Jews: Get out or Die by Cal Thomas. "Crowing about the
innocent dead and wounded, the Hamas spokesman said Jews should leave
Israel and 'return to where they came from.'How long would the United
States support a "peace process" if, say, white supremacists
in America were bombing black churches and promising the killings
wouldn't stop until African-Americans went back where they 'came
from'?"

8/3-4/02 Military
attacks are not the way By Aluf Benn, Ha-aretz. Israel's
strategic weapon against the Palestinians is not the F-16, but the
economic siege, by its various names, which is backed by the
reoccupation of Palestinian cities and by American pressure to remove
Arafat.

8/1/02
Arafat
Acts to Unravel Reforms DEBKAfile Special Report. "But as
soon as Jackson left, he vented his real feelings for Americans of any
stripe with a series of contemptuous actions - all aimed at undermining
the credibility of the US-sponsored reform program for cleansing the
Palestinian administration of terrorist and corrupt elements."

7/25/02 Both
Lynn Rivers and John Dingell vote in favor of Supplemental Appropriation
for Fiscal Year 2002. Bill includes
$28.9 B Supplemental Emergency Spending for War on Terror; Extra $200m
Allocated for Israel’s War against Terror and Suicide Bombing
Prevention; and Additional $50m for Humanitarian Aid to Palestinians -
Strictly Prohibited from Reaching Palestinian Authority.

7/25/02The
targeting of Hamas's bin Laden, By URI DAN. The
elimination of Hamas leader Salah Shehadeh in a combined General
Security Service and Israel Air Force operation had a purpose beyond the
obvious one: to inform Hamas that its chiefs are not immune to Israeli
attacks.

7/24/02 IDF,
Shin Bet to probe Gaza bombing disaster A
government source said "the operation was contrary to the entire
logic of pinpoint prevention. Usually we used tweezers to hunt an
elephant, this time we used an elephant against tweezers, and the
results were very bad."

7/23/02 Liberal
Columnist Calls on Hamas to Stop Terrorism. Tunisian
liberal Al-'Afif Al-Akhdhar, who resides in Paris and writes for the
London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, published an open letter to
Hamas in which he called on the organization to stop suicide bombings.